Lapham's Quarterly

Services

Edited by Lewis H. Lapham, the celebrated author and former editor of Harper’s Magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly is a unique and uniquely thought-provoking magazine of history and ideas, featuring writings by the likes of Aristotle, Shakespeare, Austen, and Didion alongside paintings, poems, photos, quotations, and contemporary insights.

Bluecadet collaborated with the Lapham’s Quarterly team on the first website redesign since the publication’s launch.

Our Challenge

How do you make a beautiful, 200-page magazine just as captivating on the web? Bluecadet reimagined the new, responsive website as a reflection of the print publication’s elegant, clean, and inviting aesthetic. We designed a crisp, elegant interface with lots of white space, putting the focus on striking, colorful images, subtly clever animations, and streamlined copy. The online content is color-coded according to the distinctive color motif of the print edition. And we maintained the magazine’s signature whimsy, with nonsequitur appearances of artworks, quotes, and other editorial ephemera—all with enhanced social media sharing capabilities.

INTUITIVE USER EXPERIENCE

Lapham’s Quarterly has a deep trove of content, so we aimed to organize the user experience in an intuitive way. The homepage provides quick access to the current issue’s content highlights; we also created an easily navigable content Archive, which can be browsed by Issue, Time Period and Region. Furthermore, content is connected by “Related Reads” and playful “Apropos” links—which encourages readers to click and linger beyond just one article.

“The new Lapham's Quarterly website, as created by Bluecadet, is truly a wonder to behold. The design perfectly embodies, reflects, and represents the Quarterly's fond hopes and honorable intentions. The wizard elves in Philadelphia deserve new felt shoes, a peacock feather for their caps, gold on the tips of their wands.”

Lewis H. Lapham, Editor, Lapham’s Quarterly

We designed a user-friendly Drupal content management system for Lapham’s Quarterly staff, which will help keep the online content timely and drive repeat visitation. Beyond featuring a new magazine each quarter, content authors can easily upload blog posts and even switch to a secondary homepage design that puts the spotlight on the latest blog contributions. The homepage blocks are adjustable and customizable, based on the content Lapham’s is most interested in promoting.

We hope the new Lapham’s Quarterly website inspires endless hours of reading, conversation, and imagination down the rabbit hole of history and ideas.